Rules of Writing meme

[kerravonsen]

I'm not sure if this "writing rules meme" is supposed to be rules for oneself, or rules for others (people seem to have taken it both ways). I already have written a few articles about writing fanfic:
http://www.katspace.org/Fiction-Essays/Fanfic
http://www.katspace.org/Fiction-Essays/TenCommandments

No point in just cutting and pasting them here! And since they were Rules For Other People (as well as rules for me), I'll concentrate here on the ones that I hold dear, and ones I use for me.

1. Character is Plot. If I want something to happen, I have to figure out why someone would make it happen. Conversely, if it turns out that a plot point requires that someone act out of character, then the plot has to change.

2. PoV. Never change PoV in the middle of a scene. I tend to write tight third-person, which means I have to choose whose PoV a scene is written from. I also tend to make it one-person-per-story, or two people, but not always.

3. PoV and Knowledge (aka "Remember what your characters don't know"). One of the limitations of tight third-person is that you can't tell your readers things that that person hasn't witnessed themselves. This can sometimes cause plot problems, as I the Author know what happened, but the characters don't, and thus the readers don't either. But I hold to that discipline, that you can't give characters knowledge that they shouldn't have any way of knowing.

4. Know the end from the beginning. I can't write until I know how the story ends, because I need to know what I'm working towards. That isn't to say that I need to know the details, or that the end won't change, but I still need to have some idea.

5. Transcripts are your friend. I love it when a fandom has transcripts. Canon is your friend generally, source material is your friend, re-watching episodes is fun, but transcripts are usually quicker. Quicker for what, you ask? Not just checking on particular canon points, but also I delight in finding the precise details, the exact phrases, so that I can bend canon to my will. And sometimes that can be a question of not only what was said, but who said it, to whom, who wasn't there, and what characters don't know.

6. Every scene should have a goal. When that goal is achieved, then you can wrap up the scene. Whether that goal is to convey information, or to have dramatic action, that's still a goal. Maybe it's because I'm a J, but to launch into a scene or a story with no idea where I'm going is like leaping off a cliff -- I can't do it. That being said, I don't tend to write out outlines, though. I think I've only done that once.

7. Just write. If I have an idea for a scene, I write it down, even if I'm not "up to" that scene yet. I can polish it later.

Comments

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Transcripts are your friend.

Oh, yes. Transcripts are the Best Things Ever. Incredibly handy.

[knight-random.livejournal.com]

Where are the transcripts for new Who? I kind of need to sort out a few details of Last of the Time Lords, though making sense out of certain aspects of that episode may be a doomed enterprise.

[kerravonsen]

The only site I've found is http://who-transcripts.atspace.com/ which is lovely, except that while they have all of Seasons 1 and 2 of New Who, they've only got a few episodes done of Season 3 so far.

[kalquessa.livejournal.com]

I would like to have #2 carved in ten-mile-high letters on the moon, please. PoV-switching mid-scene drives me insane. Writers that I otherwise love and adore make me sad by doing it. Don't do it, writers!

[knight-random.livejournal.com]

#7 is probably the thing I most need to remember. I sometimes have a tendency to be afraid to write something until I know perfectly what I'm doing, which is why I haven't actually written anything in forever, until last week anyway.

I've found that I have a tendency to write in tight third person too, and so do a lot of other writers these days. I wonder why that's so prevalent.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

I've found that I have a tendency to write in tight third person too, and so do a lot of other writers these days.

Speaking personally and from my own reading experience, I'd say it's due to a couple of things: 1) readers expect (and writers love to give) to experience what the characters experience, and 2) that tight 3rd person gives that illusion of being in the character's skin without having to write the entire narrative in precisely that character's voice (ie, 1st person).

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

3. PoV and Knowledge (aka "Remember what your characters don't know").

One of the most fun challenges I've set myself has been trying to convey to readers knowledge that neither of the point of view characters has access to (it helped that the POV characters only met up in flashbacks and in one scene towards the very end of the story). Specifically they didn't know that a non-POV character knew a lot more about them than they thought he did, and had no clue about the background that gave him that knowledge. I was greatly cheered that at least one reader (so far, and that's just the one that's told me) worked it all out with no extra-textual hints from me.